Lincoln's religious life in Springfield has been and is the subject of violent controversy. Much that has been written on both sides bears the marks of prejudice and exhibits internal evidence of having been consciously or unconsciously distorted. In a later chapter it will come before us for review and analysis. Of it we may now remind ourselves that in this period covering nearly a quarter of a century Lincoln was developing in many ways. He emerged from grinding poverty into a condition in which he owned a home and had a modest sum of money in the bank. From an ill-trained fledgling lawyer, compelled by his poverty to share a bed in a friend's room above the store, he had come to be a leader at the Illinois bar. From an obscure figure in State politics he had come to be the recognized leader of a political party that was destined to achieve national success and to determine the policies of the nation with little interruption for more than half a century. Out of a condition of great mental uncertainty in all matters relating to domestic relations he had come into a settled condition as the husband of a brilliant and ambitious woman and the father of a family of sons to whom he was devotedly attached. For the first time in his life he lived in a community where there were buildings wholly dedicated to the purposes of public worship; and after a considerable period of non-church attendance, and perhaps another of infrequent or irregular attendance, he had become a regular attendant and supporter of a church whose minister was his personal friend and whom he greatly admired. During his years in Springfield, Mr. Lincoln's political ideals had undergone marked change. His experience in the Illinois Legislature is not discreditable; neither does it manifest any notably high ideals. Nor was he brilliantly successful in his one term in Congress. Lincoln was an honest politician, in the sense that he kept his promises and stood by his announced convictions. But it is impossible to read into his legislative history any such lofty purpose as later possessed him. He and the other members of the "Long Nine" log-rolled in orthodox political fashion, and won from Governor Ford the title "spared monuments of popular wrath."[21] As a jury lawyer, also, his arts were those of the successful trial lawyer of the period. So far as the author has been able to find, there was no unworthy chapter in all this long history. The story, for instance, that in the trial of Armstrong Lincoln used an almanac of another year and won his case by fraud, has, as the author is convinced, no foundation whatever in fact. On the contrary, Lincoln was at a serious disadvantage in any case in whose justice he did not fully believe.